


Absolution

by uninvitedtrashcan



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: Angst, Childhood Friends, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Living Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Role Reversal, Slow Burn, Small Towns, Summer Vacation
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-12
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-04-22 01:39:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14297946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uninvitedtrashcan/pseuds/uninvitedtrashcan
Summary: Gary's spent a year in Happy Volts whilst Pete's become star pupil. Summer Vacation used to be their sacred time together, but a year apart can do things to a friendship.Or so Petey thinks, until Gary Smith turns up on his doorstep and they learn just how much they've changed.





	1. Ghost

Gary and Pete live in the same neighbourhood, so summer vacation has always been an oddly intimate affair. Sure, Gary would still bully him and call him by ‘femboy’ more than his real name, but with no audience to rile him and no student body to piss him off every other hour, he was almost chill, for Gary.

But Petey’s not so sure that trend will hold after a year spent locked up in Happy Volts. They missed the last summer together, what with the whole ‘hiding up in the belltower’ thing and how Gary would rather lick Jimmy’s shoe than deal with his father for another four months. Of course, then he got caught and it was Happy Volts or Juvie, with a five month sentence that seemed to be getting extended exponentially. So yeah, it’s kind of a shock when the school sociopath turns up on Pete’s doorstep three days into the Summer holidays, a half-empty rucksack slung over one shoulder, face a patchwork of bruises.

They haven’t reconciled; they never do really, Gary just grunts and rambles on about how he should have stayed at Happy Volts. He doesn’t need to say the word ‘father’ for Petey to piece together what’s happened. The deja vu is enough to trick him into inviting the psychic vampire in, feeling like they’re twelve again, before they learned the routine of tree-climbing and leaving the bedroom window on latch. Back before Petey started locking the window out of fear of what he’d face at four am in the morning, before the first round at Happy Volts and before that godawful school year.

Scuffing his heels, Gary enters. That he does so without shoulder-checking Petey might be a sign that he’s mended his malicious ways, or more likely, just a result of the previously-scrawny dweeb now being six foot two and slowly thickening in the shoulders. Gary’s gained an inch or two, maybe, but now the top of his head’s level with Petey’s eyeline, if that. He’s lost weight too, gaunt about the cheekbones, as if Happy Volts really is as awful as they say.

Pete almost feels sorry for him. Then he remembers their last year together and buries the feeling; he’s not going back to being the victim. He’s head boy now, star pupil and already noted by an Ivy League college for his national contest winning essay. Yet all that achievement and flourishing leaves a bitter aftertaste in the back of his throat as he watches his childhood best friend itch at a neck dotted with yellow-green fingerprints.

‘You here for summer?’ Gary asks, unusually short in speech. Or maybe that’s not unusual for him nowadays, Petey wouldn’t know. The three times he tried to visit Gary in Volts, he refused to see him.

‘Yeah. Working down at the hardware store most days— trying to save for College.’

‘Obi’s?’

‘Yep.’

A silence so rare for their past selves settles between them, and on instinct, Petey braces for an insult or a reckoning or just something where Gary uses it to gain the upperhand. ‘You?’ He asks, his voice creaking too high and he knows he’s going to get ribbed for it.

‘I suppose so, Petey boy.’ The old nickname hurts in a way that seems more cruel than insults and bickering. ‘Just got to figure out where I’ll be setting up camp in this hell hole.’ Dale Valley is actually a pretty nice small town, but Pete knows that no amount of affluence or wholesome societal values could make this place feel safe for Gary.

He knows what he’s being asked, though Gary’s not saying it. His old pushover self is aching to give in, because even though the last year has been one of the best in his life, the silence between them has been killing him in a way he resents more than anything. But Gary did shit, and Petey’s done taking it.

‘Did you come round for something?’ He asks, voice pointed, gaze probing. _Just ask,_ he thinks, trying to will Gary to comply. _Just ask and I’ll say yes._

‘Just seeing if you were in town,’ Gary says, his old sing-song voice returning as he forces a smile. ‘And-’ he pauses, ‘just wishing you a happy summer, if that’s possible in this dump.’

‘Anything else?’

Petey’s just trying to prompt him, but the brisk tone has Gary freezing over, and the Old Gary flashes back in a sneer and a curled lip. ‘Well, excuse me for the peace treaty. Guess I’ll show myself out.’ He storms out quickly enough that Petey doesn’t think he’s fishing for an apology, but as he marches off, hands in his pockets, he glances back at the Kowalski household. The call is there in Pete’s throat, ready, but he swallows it.

Gary vanishes down the pavement.


	2. Spectre

Thunderstorms are a staple item for summer vacation in Dale Valley, The air’s been thickening all week now, humid and oppressive . At last, tonight it's broken. At three in the morning, Pete sits wedged on his windowsill pressed flush with the cool glass, textbook open on his lap though the lights are all out in the house. He reads by flashes of lightning, watching the downpour outside between the snatches of what could pass as daylight its so bright.

There’s something surreal about how silent the house is, when outside the rain is drumming on windows and pavements and the thunder is heavy enough to send vibrations through the glass panes. It’s like being caught in a held breath. Pete cracks the window, letting in the noise and the freezing chill of all that humidity dispersed with the rain. It leaves him shivering and thinking after a blanket, but he can’t bring himself to move.

Lightning cracks; Gary Smith is at his window. He should be surprised, and sure, his body jolts out of reflex, but whether it be thanks to the strange liminality of the late hour or the way storms have always felt otherworldly to him, he feels almost as if he’s been waiting for this.

For a moment, he doesn’t move. His fingers go to the lock and brush against it without turning. He realises that for the first time, he does not have to let Gary in. Drawing the curtains never before felt like an option, but as he looks back at the faint shadow once illuminated by the storm, Pete feels certain he could shut the curtains, go to bed, and sleep without giving in and relenting.

Another flash of lightning depicts Gary as sat back on his hunches, damp hair plastered to his face, eyes not even looking at Petey but rather at his own feet. Something about the way he seems to have sunk down into the balcony, limbs heavy, head bowed, gives Pete the impression that even if the window is never opened, he’ll stay there until Pete decides he’s ready, even if that’s never. Or maybe that’s the lightning playing tricks.

Petey turns the lock and drags the window up until it’s open enough to stick a head in or out. When Gary doesn’t immediately shimmy his way inside, Petey goes to meet him, leaning out by the waist before his eyes adjust and he realises he’s less than an inch from Gary’s sopping fringe.

Gary still being Gary, he tilts his head up, catches his gaze, smirks, and says, ‘Nice night for it, isn’t it?’

‘Good old Dale,’ Petey replies, wincing at the freezing rain now running down his neck. They sort of half snort, half laugh, though none of it feels that simple, and they wait. Petey already knows where he stands: he isn’t going first.

Gary grunts and shifts those heavy looking limbs, his shoulders folding inwards as he scratches his jaw. ‘Mind if I come in?’ He doesn’t quite look at him when he says it, but he says it nonetheless.

‘Please do. It’s freezing out here.’ Petey ducks back in, stacking his book back on the pile, flicking on the desk lamp, busying himself as he feels nerves threaten to seize his body. After a year of hell and a year apart, Gary Smith is clambering into his bedroom.

Shuttering the window behind him, Gary stands there drip drying on the carpet. Petey hadn’t spotted it before, but he’s got his dismal looking rucksack again, clutched in one hand that won’t stop fiddling. ‘Out for a stroll?’ He asks, because this sight is just a little too pitiful to hold back from prompting. Gary chuckles. ‘You know me, just out to cause havoc in the night. No prefects here to enforce curfew.’

‘As head boy, I should report you.’

Starting, he looks up. ‘Head boy?’ His cocky expression falters, flounders, and then adopts a smile too false for both their liking. ‘Congratulations.’

‘Thank you.’

Silence, again. Petey gets why that’s thrown him but he’s only half sorry for it; things worked out the way they did largely thanks to Gary. But then Petey knows that in some ways what happened wasn’t Gary’s fault, or at least, Petey doesn’t think so. Sometimes he does, when someone brings up an old rumor Gary started or he spots an old scar and remembers too vividly. At those times it’s hard to remember the half-glimpses he got of what Gary was dealing with, the not-quite-explanations that even the infamous Gary Smith couldn’t hide. It’s not enough to make him forgive him, but he thinks maybe he understands parts of him, and that’s something.

It’s enough of something for him to open his mouth ready to prompt again, but Gary beats him to it, ‘Hey, strange question, but can I stay here for a bit? With you, I mean. Not for the whole summer, just till I figure out where else I can stay.’ It’s more honest than Gary’s been in years, so he’s quick to mask it with a satirical grin and say, ‘The housing market is just such a nightmare right now, you know? And with weather like this, is it any wonder that there’s so much competition to live here?’

Even though Petey was waiting for it, he’s still taken aback by it. He has to swallow and compose himself, and it takes enough time for something on Gary’s face to stiffen and pale. Gary’s never let him have this much power before; it’s unsettling for the both of them. ‘I said you can always stay here when you need to. Just don’t-’ Pete doesn’t know if there’s a right way to phrase this.

‘Don’t go batshit insane and try to take over the world again? I mean I guess I can take that one off of my summer to do list.’ Their laughter is uncomfortable to say the least. ‘It- Volts is fucking hell on earth but they did help sort out my medication. It’s a lot better than last time.’

Last time for once doesn’t mean when Gary stopped taking his pills, but rather the whole mess that led up to it. Pete finds it a lot harder to be angrier about that last time, though he’s pretty sure he never really saw much of what Gary went through. ‘And you’ll keep taking them this time.’

‘Yeah, no Halloween repeats this time. Remembering to take them is the only-’

‘I’ll remind you. A lot.’

With an abashed softness Pete doesn’t expect, Gary smiles. ‘Thanks,’ he murmurs under his breath, fiddling with his rucksack strap before dropping it to the floor. ‘Your folks won’t mind?’

‘I’ll talk to them. Mom might take awhile to come around but you know Dad’s always been soft on you.’

‘Can’t say I blame her.’

It’s almost an apology. Petey would push for more but he doesn’t want to ruin the night, not when Gary looks like pneumonia is setting in and dawn’s creeping up on the horizon. ‘Wait here. I’ll grab you a towel and sleeping bag. You remember how to set up the camp bed?’

‘Done it enough times.’

‘Great. Grab whatever clothes you want, they should fit you.’

Looking off at the floor, Gary smirks to himself. ‘You’re fucking huge. Can’t believe you grew, you bastard.’

‘Came with the job. Had to look intimidating to strike fear into the first years.’

‘God, now you’re the prefects we were always running from. Things have really changed.’

‘Yeah,’ Petey agrees. ‘They have.’

As he goes to the door, Gary calls him back, ‘Hey Petey.’ He meets his eye this time, face seeming much, much older than before. ‘Thanks.’

Pete nods. He’s careful to show nothing on his face, but down below there’s warmth pooling in his stomach and maybe dealing with his mother will be easy after all. ‘You’re welcome.’


	3. The Park

The next day, they’re hanging out anywhere but at Petey’s house. His mom didn’t got apeshit exactly, more just took on a veneer of steely calm that snapped at the drop of a hat. Ever since Gary’s bullying graduated into flat-out assault, she hasn’t wanted him anywhere near her only child, let alone in the house with them. She spent the entire summer holiday afterwards babying Pete to no end and trailing off grand speeches of ‘I always knew he was trouble’ and the like.

When asked if he could stay with them, she said yes— and that is why Petey loves her so much.

‘You really think she’s not gonna change her mind?’ Gary asks with more pessimism than should be allowed when eating ice cream. Together, they’re loitering in the kids’ play park out the back of an old abandoned mall, over on the shadier side of town— as if Gary’s already preparing to go home. It’d be just like old times were Pete’s legs not over the top of the kids’ swing seat rather than in the cute little holes, too big to fit, and were Gary not smoking as he reclines across the roundabout, spinning at a snail’s speed. His own ice cream lies in the trash; his meds kill his appetite, apparently.

‘I know my mom.’ It’s too hot for Pete to be hungry, and his slow pacing leaves him constantly licking melted drizzle off of his hands and fingers. He's boring and went with vanilla, so he waits for Gary to make some kind of cum-eating joke attached to 'femboy', but all he's met with is silence. ‘She wouldn’t send you back there. Even if you’d killed a man, or drowned puppies for fun, she wouldn’t do that to someone.’

They don’t talk about what it is that Gary would return to. They never have done, save for the odd occasions where Gary would go off on a spree of destruction and yelling, throwing things whilst screaming long incoherent sentences that Pete understood both too much and too little of. Pete wonders if they should, wants to say something, but the blistering heat kills all motivation for anything except lazing about.

Unless you’re Gary Smith, it seems.

Heaving himself up off of the roundabout, Gary shuffles over and plops down on the swing beside him, bringing with him the haze of smoke. ‘Why’d you let me stay?’ They don’t look at each other; Petey just looks at Gary, the same way Gary used to look at him, like he’s trying to catalog his weaknesses. Only, Petey wants to use them to help, maybe.

He hasn’t seen Gary look at him like that since they last saw each other.

Gary’s much better than he ever was under such close observation, face totally blank, not betraying a thing as he takes a drag and holds it in. ‘I don’t know,’ Pete says, looking away; he’s not as good at watching as Gary ever was either, too uncomfortable, too awkward to really press the point. Maybe that’s why they’ve never talked about so much despite all the years of knowing one another. ‘Guess things felt unfinished. Besides you—’ He scratches the back of his neck. ‘Don’t get me wrong, you’ve always been a particular kind of asshole, but that last year, you know, you were… _ill_.’

‘You make my grand taking over of the school sound so pathetic,’ Gary says with an attempt at wry indignation that falls flat, busying himself with relighting his already lit cigarette straight after.

‘Yeah. I mean, it kinda was. I mean it was clever, how you did it, but we all knew you were clever without you doing all that.’ Petey wishes they weren’t having this conversation now, that they didn’t have to have it ever. But, if they’re going to live together, maybe it’s worth explaining why Gary Smith doesn’t terrify him anymore, why, after everything came to fruition, he still went to visit. ‘It all just felt like a cry for help, Gary.’

He waits to be knocked off of the swing and have his face kicked into the asphalt. He waits to be called an imbecile femboy, or maybe Gary came up with a new jeer with all that time spent in Volts.

Instead of all of that, something much, much more painful happens; he has to watch Gary Smith cry.      



End file.
